Tackling maternal mortality

Cross-posted on http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/WDIGlobalImpact/archives/2009/ashish/index.html

As you may know, my WDI internship this summer is with GE Healthcare. I will be supporting GE healthcare's maternal and child health initiative for rural areas. Our goal is to serve the world’s rural poor by providing them access to low cost technologies that improve diagnostic accuracy & public health outcomes. Specifically, I will be working on the maternal and child health initiative, initially focusing on using diagnostic technologies (ultrasound and more) to reduce the maternal mortality rate (MMR). Maternal mortality is the one health outcome that has the most inequality in the world, with 99% of maternal mortality occurring in the developing world. Furthermore, reduction of maternal mortality (Millenium Development Goal 5) has been the most difficult Millenium Development Goal globally to tackle, with only around a 1% improvement on average worldwide.

With ultrasound technology becoming portable and less expensive, there is a definite opportunity to provide Obstetric screening to the last mile i.e. in rural villages of developing countries. To achieve this, GE is currently partnering with MCH groups around the world who have successfully "task shifted" to midwives, nurses & community health workers in order to improve access to maternal healthcare in rural areas. Our partners include Partners In Health (PIH) in Haiti, ISCISA in Mozambique (who started the award-winning midwife-surgeon program), and our flagship partnership is with Grameen Kalyan in Bangladesh.

Personally, it is truly an exciting opportunity to be able to conduct trials with these world-class partners around the world, and to work at a scale that only a corporate like GE can enable. Our approach is that of a social enterprise: we are exploring this opportunity both as directly affecting global health outcomes, as well as becoming a viable business for GE. There are many challenges to overcome: designing a viable technology platform, successfully task-shifting to midwives, nurses etc, completing the "value chain" by providing treatment options after diagnosis etc. I am confident that with a sincere effort from GE and their partners, this problem can be surmounted towards a very worthwhile social outcome.